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Pelleas

and Ettarre.

PELLEAS, a simple youth, but pure and brave, comes to Arthur's court and is knighted. One day he rides across the Forest of Dean to seek Caerleon and the King, when he lights upon a company of gay damsels and knights who had lost their way. The lady of the party appeals

to Sir Pelleas to direct them:

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The beauty of her flesh abash'd the boy,
As tho' it were the beauty of her soul."

This is the Lady Ettarre, an important personage and an accomplished flirt. Pelleas is so impressionable that Ettarre seizes her opportunity, and, seeing him strong in frame with heart all ablaze, she will have him fight for her and win the circlet, "that I may love thee."

Pelleas in ecstasy, deceived by the false pressure of her hand, not seeing the mocking glance she flashed around until a smile wriggled over every face, promised, "nor slept that night."

In the Tournament of Youth he wins the golden circlet, which the Lady Ettarre accepts, and wearing for "the last time is gracious to him." On their return he is treated with cold and cynical snubbing. She "cannot bide Sir Baby."

The damsels are to keep him back and feed him on pap-meat. Arriving at the castle gates he is shut out and left to wander in a field, where he

consoles himself with an analysis of woman's mind,

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"These be the ways of ladies," he says, and thinks she is testing his fidelity, and he will persevere; so all day long by the castle wall he sits upon his steed. The lady in anger bids her minions drive him hence, when Pelleas receives their charge and they are overthrown; and still he keeps his watch.

They charge again, when he submits to be bound, and is carried to Ettarre, with the result that he is "smitten" more deeply, and believes in her and in her word. He thinks she is putting him to the proof, and she will yield in the end. Alas! how she mocks his knightly vows and thrusts him out of doors, railing

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Fool to the midmost marrow of his bones,
He will return no more.' . . .”

But at the end of the week he is still there, crouching like a faithful dog!

Ettarre now would have him slain, or bound, and brought once more before her. The caitiffs, three to one, charge upon him, when Sir Gawain flashes on the scene with proffered help to Pelleas, which, however, he declines, and overthrows the minions. They leap again, bind him, and bring him to Ettarre. The lady wreaks her wrath upon the caitiffs, and commands them to thrust him bound from the palace gates. At last upon the love-lorn youth the fact dawns that he has been cruelly fooled; and yet his love burns on!

66 'Farewell;

And tho' ye kill my hope, not yet my love.'”

A glimpse of the better nature in Ettarre, like a star-gleam across a dark sky, is revealed in her reflection :

"I deem'd him fool? yea, so? or that in him

A something was it nobler than myself ?—
Seem'd my reproach? He is not of my kind.'"

Meanwhile the bound lover is being released by Gawain, who, wayward as the wind, yet doubtless sincere, offers to be proxy. He will do the wooing and bring the lady to her senses; he will play upon her feelings by assuring her that he had slain Pelleas, and, when he wins her confidence, he will chant the praise of Pelleas "from prime to vespers." Sir Gawain enters the castle, but he lingers within, as Pelleas without sings the song of his "rose."

Weary of waiting, Pelleas passes through the open gates across the court into a garden with three pavilions,

"And in the third, the circlet of the jousts

Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Ettarre.”

His pure young heart burns with indignation as he creeps away in moral loathing to the castle bridge, when his shame flames into wrath. He will go back and slay them there. With drawn sword he stands over the guilty sleepers, but the vow of brotherhood restrains him. He passes out, but returns to lay the gleaming sword across their naked

throats. Then he rides moaning, like a madman, from the castle, calling up the doom of hell upon its walls and women, wailing over the pure love he had wasted on that loathsome creature of sensuous beauty, and exclaiming :

"I loathe her, as I loved her; to my shame," "

wildly dashes into night.

The guilty sleepers wake with the cold of the sword upon their throats. Ettarre, in wrath, with awakened conscience, charges Gawain with falsity.

66

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And he that tells the tale

Says that her ever-veering fancy turn'd

To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth,
And only lover; and thro' her love her life
Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain.”

Sir Pelleas rides madly on through the starry darkness to the tower "where Percivale was cowled," and there beside the walls he sleeps and dreams of Gawain setting fire to Arthur's hall, when hands are laid upon him and he starts crying

"False! and I held thee pure as Guinevere.""

He is thinking of the lady Ettarre, but Percivale hears the words and asks if he is dreaming or has he heard of Lancelot? Pelleas, like a wounded man, cries—

"'Is the Queen false?' And Percivale was mute."

Then Pelleas mounts his steed and, riding over

a cripple, dashes on like a fiend until in sight of the tall towers of Arthur's hall.

"Black nest of rats,' he groan'd, 'ye build too high.''

Suddenly Sir Lancelot appears and Pelleas bears down upon him, declines to give his name, and comes as a poisonous wind to

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And blaze the crime of Lancelot and the Queen."" He madly dashes, without sword, upon the great Knight, when, his weary steed staggering at the shock, Pelleas falls, crying, "Thou art false as hell." Sir Lancelot, with his heel upon him, in fierce but passing anger, speaks.

"Rise, weakling; I am Lancelot; say thy say.'

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They pass together into the hall of Arthur.

The

Queen learns they have fought, but knows not why.

She bids him speak if he have plaint to make.

"But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce

She quail'd; and he, hissing 'I have no sword,'
Sprang from the door into the dark. . . . '

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Then rose between the Queen and Lancelot the phantom of retribution. They saw in the face of each the shadow of the coming doom, that Nemesis which is the penalty of sin.

"Then a long silence came upon the hall,

And Modred thought, 'The time is hard at hand.''

It is a painful picture, but, like the picture of

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